'Hospital massacre': Israeli strike kills hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli air strike on a Gaza hospital compound killed at least 500 people, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza has said.

There were at least 500 victims as a result of an Israeli air strike on Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, a spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday.

"Hundreds of victims are still under the rubble," it added.

The media office of Gaza's Hamas government described the attack as a "war crime".

"The hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes" because of other strikes, a statement said.

'Genocide'

Hamas called the hospital strike "a horrific massacre", calling Israel's targeting of the hospital a "genocide."

It said in a statement that most of the casualties were displaced families, patients, children and women.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in the meantime, declared three days of mourning following the deadly attack.

Abbas announced "public mourning for three days and flags flown at half-mast for the martyrs of the Baptist hospital massacre and all our people's martyrs", the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

"What is taking place is genocide. We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop this massacre. Silence is no longer acceptable," a statement issued by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation said in response to the attack.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed the need to stop "unprecedented brutality in Gaza" after deadly hospital strike.

"To target a hospital with women, children, and innocent civilians inside is the latest example of Israel's attacks devoid of the most basic human values," he said in a statement in X.

Egypt on the other hand denounced "in strongest terms" an Israeli air strike on a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of Palestinians, saying the international community must urgently intervene to stop such violations, according to a foreign ministry statement.

An Israeli military spokesperson would not immediately confirm its forces bombed the hospital.

"We will look into it ... the strike happened just a short while ago, " Daniel Hagari said in a televised press briefing.

Around 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes across Gaza since the war erupted on October 7.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, the majority gunned down by Hamas fighters who crossed from Gaza and attacked border communities.